


Anchor

by farfetched



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Eita is learning to play the guitar, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Isolated Together, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Semi Eita, and accidentally serenading Tendou, lockdown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23376796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfetched/pseuds/farfetched
Summary: Spreading their arms out either side of them, they stare at the ceiling. This is pulling on them in so many ways they didn't expect; laying here, on Tendou's floor, in Tendou's clothes, right down to their underwear because who expects a lockdown to get enforced overnight? They didn't bring anything much. They should have. They ought to chance going home.But they can't, so they don't. Home is an empty place right now anyway, and here there is food and laughter and music and in between all that is their realisation that they're not so over this Tendou thing after all.[Eita did not expect a lockdown with Tendou. Eita is trying to find space in a situation where Tendou is so close.]
Relationships: Semi Eita/Tendou Satori
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a song fic, per se, but the title and some scenes include the song 'Anchor' by Novo Amor. It's a very pretty song, I can highly recommend!

Spreading their arms out either side of them, they stare at the ceiling. This is pulling on them in so many ways they didn't expect; laying here, on Tendou's floor, in Tendou's clothes, right down to their underwear because who expects a lockdown to get enforced overnight? They didn't bring anything much. They should have. They ought to chance going home. 

But they can't, so they don't. Home is an empty place right now anyway, and here there is food and laughter and music and in between all that is their realisation that they're not so over this Tendou thing after all. 

There's movement next to them, and then Tendou himself curls up by their side, resting his head on their arm, knee just over theirs. 

There's nothing to it, because it's Tendou, but Eita can't get their head around it, can't get the message to their body. 

"Semisemi~" Tendou sings. Part of them wants to curl their arm around Tendou's back. They stay very still. 

"Is there a reason you had to get so close?" They ask, pointedly continuing to stare at the ceiling. They can feel Tendou grin, though. 

"Why, do you think I'm infectious?" He teases.  
"I'm not Sakusa, you know. If you're trying to freak me out it's not working," they try. They're not freaked out, just- it's messing with them in different ways. Freaked out would be a better response. 

Tendou lets a deep breath run through his teeth, making an irritated hissing sound. "You're no fun," he remarks, placing one arm rather deliberately on Eita's chest, resting against their sternum, fingers draped over their collarbone. They try very hard to keep their breathing the same.

Thing is, they feel like Tendou probably knows. Tendou is observant, far too observant, and while they've held this kernel of knowledge close to their chest and spoken of it to no one, they're still sure that Tendou has worked it out. Why he continues to stay close is beyond them. But it's constant, and while they know that Tendou is someone who touches very casually, it seems rather specifically designed to erode their will. Why, they don't know. Does Tendou want them to say something about it? Does Tendou want them to say something so he can turn them down? Egging them on? Or perhaps, ever the master of aimless provocation, he's merely seeing how far he can push before Eita breaks.

Eita doesn't want to play that game.

"Why are you on the floor, anyway?" Tendou asks whilst they are imagining those slow breathing exercises. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Don't think of the solid pressure on their chest, the leg just over theirs, the head rested on their arm. Don't think of the clothes they're wearing, the flutter of Tendou's breath against their cheek, the thrum of their pulse in their ears.

Eita shrugs.  
"Good a place as any," they murmur. It's possible that in thinking so hard about not thinking about those things, they're all that they can focus on.

"For what, Semisemi? Checking the constellations in the artex?" Tendou asks, needling further. They've captured his curiosity now.

The ceiling is very different from their own, back home, and the dorm. At some point, someone got some kind of paint or plaster that can be moulded, and they could've swirled it in to patterns, but they've just let it drip, freezing it in a state where it looks as though with enough heat it could just melt off. There are too many drips to see constellations: Eita was finding the valleys, they'd say, or making the mountain ranges. In reality, they were taking their moment alone to regroup, to tie the ragged edges of their feelings back into something they can manage. 

Tendou likes opening things. Tendou likes opening things especially if he doesn't know what's within them, and if curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought Tendou back. He returns to puzzles, again and again, even more so if he couldn't solve them the first time.

Eita is a puzzle to him, they think. But like an odd gift, Tendou won’t know what to do with the contents. 

"Yeah," they reply. "There's the avocado, and the horse. There's the Tendou," they points up at one that looks spiky. In their peripheral vision, they spot Tendou squinting up at the ceiling. 

"Where?" He asks, suspicion thick in his voice. 

"There. The spiky one, next to the racetrack and the sushi roll, above the eagle. Below the snake." 

Tendou continues scowling up at the ceiling, maybe trying to work it out, or maybe deciphering if Eita is messing with him. Eita takes the unobserved moment to watch Tendou, his eyes flitting about as he stares upwards. They've heard people say that Tendou is too gangly and angular to fancy – and far too weird for the rest of the population. Eita doesn't disagree, per se: Tendou is all those things, but to Eita that just makes him more interesting. A little too interesting, apparently. Tendou catches them looking, and they stare at each other for a moment. 

Eita sometimes thinks they'd like to be the artist who could capture the vibrant shade of his hair, the angle of his nose, the vivid expression of his face. Thinks that they'd like to draw all that to life – and yet it could never be quite so alive as Tendou is. 

Eita thinks, sometimes, that there's no hope for them. 

"Classes are gonna restart in a sec." They haven't checked the time, but surely. This is their lunch break, spent on the floor watching the ceiling and etching out a gap in their mind, only for Tendou to effortlessly carve himself into that gap again. 

"I think you're messing with me about the constellations," Tendou remarks, pouting. Eita laughs, breathy with the hysteria of being trapped in a house with their crush for however long. 

"Maybe." 

Their side is cold when Tendou moves. They tell themselves the space is worth the discomfort.

* * *

Their online classes are an event of huddling around Tendou's laptop, and trying not to get distracted, or let Tendou distract them, or let Tendou distract himself. Today's location is the dining room table, converted into a study – even in prison, they still teach things. Enforced quarantine is no different. Tendou's knee jostles against theirs as he bounces it, always distractable during English. 

Left with homework, Eita is trying to translate a passage in their head in order to answer the question. Tendou leans against him. 

“Semisemiiii~” he sings, dropping his head onto their shoulder. Is it any wonder that there’s no room to get away from this? Tendou leaves them no room. Sleep is a blissful respite from their waking hours of careful control, doubt, and maybe maybes. “Help me~” 

Eita pushes back, but Tendou falls right back to where he had been. Eita gives up. Part of them doesn’t really want him gone, but it’s also too close. 

“If you’d been listening, you’d know,” they mutter, making a note – difficult, with their right arm being leant on. Tendou huffs dramatically, and twists, falling partway into their lap, grinning up at them. 

“I’ll listen to you better, Semisemi!” he announces. Eita doesn’t know how he does it.  
“Teacher too boring for you? What makes me any better at teaching you? They had to learn this stuff,” Eita points out, but they’ve already lost, and Tendou knows it. 

He narrows his eyes, smiling oddly. “Unlike the teacher, Eita-kun, I like listening to you.” 

Eita hits him in the face with a book, and enjoys the resultant squawk. This quarantine is going to be the end of them, they could swear. How much can one person take?

* * *

It's nothing more than the midnight recklessness of a restless teenager: Tendou fell asleep in front of the anime he made them watch, and Eita watched him do it, the sharp angle of defence dropping away into something less steep, something that nonetheless catches in Eita's chest. They slide out to the roof with the guitar, and uncomfortably lie down and stare up at the stars, plucking random chords. 

Wiling away silent minutes, they fill the sky with quiet notes, a lonely song of containment from the earth to the stars. They imagine that Betelgeuse listens, watches their pitiful plight. They imagine that the Pleiades clap a hazy applause, for the hesitant tune they weave between its gaps. Stars know nothing of containment, but they will teach them, one note at a time. 

The world is quieter, cleaner, without the humans. The sky is clearer, and more stars appear to watch Eita's chorus than usual. No planes to interrupt their view. The uncomfortable ridges of the roof and the faint chill ebb away to background noise as they lose themselves in the sky. 

They're telling Polaris of liking someone and not being able to tell them when the window slides open. 

"Eita-kun?" 

With another strum, they tell Polaris yes. That's him. Him, hovering there in his anime top and track suit bottoms. Him, with his hair ungelled that Eita's becoming too used to seeing. Him, with his expressions and oddities and weird charm. It's him. It's been him for a while, and they don't see it changing. 

Eita hums, turning their gaze back to the stars. Rigel laughs at them, Castor and Pollux too. They strum a harsh note, to shut them all up, and the sky watches as Tendou gingerly steps out onto the roof. 

A short tune keeps Sirius from commenting, and they close their eyes at the way Tendou's arm brushes theirs as he lies down next to them. Too close. Always too close, but never close enough. 

"Play me a song, Eita-kun." 

Tendou doesn't ask for things. He demands them, and Eita gives without thought at times. This is one, a song they started learning the other day, whilst Tendou was still asleep, sat in the garden with videos and lyrics to guide them. About loving and losing, about being there in the times in between. Being an anchor, being stability, and watching someone leave again and again. 

The chords are clumsy, not yet smooth under their unpractised fingers. They stumble over the lyrics, never quite so good at English, but liking the song enough to try. The stars all are their audience too, comforted by the imperfections of it and how they pin it between them all. 

Containment will end. All things end. Nothing lasts forever, empires rise and fall, humans die and get born and live and run, concrete and buildings will crumble and fall when no one is left to maintain them. All things end, and the song does too as Bellatrix holds onto their final notes. In turn, she sends Eita the initial fallings of sleep, a heaviness to their eyelids. They glance at Tendou, watching them intently. 

"Very pretty," Tendou murmurs, his voice low, as though he doesn't want the stars to hear. 

Eita knows he's talking about the song. 

"It's a nice song," they remark, and yawn. Something about thinking of longing and singing of it tires them out. 

"That's..." Tendou starts, then huffs, lips quirking up slightly. He shuffles closer, just so their shoulders are touching. "Yeah. You gonna translate it for me?" 

Eita shifts their arm so more of it is touching Tendou's. They want to hold his hand, but that's too far. "You can do that yourself, Tendou," 

"I'd rather you did it, Eita-kun." 

Eita has apparently stopped being Semisemi and started being Eita-kun. Another of Tendou's oddnesses. 

"It can be your quarantine project. I'll check it for you," Eita offers. Tendou pouts. "Anyway, unless you wanna sleep on this roof, we should probably get inside," they murmur, not wanting to move, but unwilling to risk broken limbs for that midnight recklessness. It's given them more than enough, and it'll take very easily. 

“Play that for me again, then we’ll go,” Tendou says. His gaze is piercing in many ways, and Eita feels they are being dissected for some truth they don’t know. 

They sing it for the stars, because singing it for Tendou feels too intimate. Feels like they’re asking Tendou to anchor up to them, and feels like they’re a little too afraid of the answer to ask that. They sing it to Procyon instead, twinkling pleasantly as the world turns away some more. 

They let the last chords linger, unwilling to give up this small freedom. Tendou's mother will go mad if she knows they've been up here. Eita thinks even that would be worth it; she cannot ground them more than lockdown already has. 

When Tendou remains silent, Eita takes his eyes from the stars and falls back to earth; he's looking at them with a small smile, half-lidded eyes. 

"Yep. Very pretty," he says. 

Almost like- Eita doesn't know how to deal with that.  
"C'mon, we got to go in." Tendou makes no show of moving. Equally, neither does Eita. They both just look at each other in the dim light of a starlit night. Tendou’s hand twitches; Eita barely dares breath, lest something break. 

“If I translate that song, do I get a reward?” Tendou whispers. Eita wrinkles their nose, knowing Tendou’s tricks. Even though they shouldn’t be considering it, even though they know it’ll be something stupid like getting him breakfast for a week or something – they think about it anyway. They have hopes. They’re only human. 

“Depends on what you want,” they mutter. Probably something menial, something so mundane it’ll make the hope in their chest turn cold, bring with it that ache like whenever Tendou talks about someone looking cute, making it feel like breathing is heavy. 

Tendou hums, and brings his other hand over to sort out an errant tuft of Eita’s hair. The roots tingle like they’ve left the bleach on too long, like a sudden gust of cold wind. 

“Haven’t decided yet,” he says, and suddenly pats Eita on the head. “I’ll think about it. You gonna help me?”  
“Pssh, no. It’s not _your_ project if I do, Tendou.” 

Tendou pauses, his hand resting on their head, warmth seeping through their hair. This doesn’t seem like the normal casual contact but- they can’t think about that. 

“Tomorrow, anyway.” Tendou relinquishes all contact to sit up. Eita follows, steadying the guitar in the crook of their arm. Why Tendou has a guitar, who knows. Eita’s glad of it though, to fill the space with something other than just living with Tendou. They’ll ask tomorrow, maybe. “So I’ll do that during English, instead.” 

Eita laughs quietly as they push Tendou towards the window and wait while he fits his gangly form into the small gap. “It’s meant to be in addition to your homework, not instead of.” 

Tendou complains, and Eita knows that it’ll get done instead. He’s considered it a puzzle key, Eita thinks; a piece to the Puzzle of Semi Eita, and he’s probably wondering what he’ll find with this one. 

If he keeps digging… Who knows. Puzzles don’t always relinquish their secrets so easily, but taking a hammer to a puzzle box is one way of winning. 

He turns and holds his hand out to help Eita back in through the window. 

Eita’s scalp doesn’t feel right for hours.

* * *

Tendou is having a shower. The ground outside is doing the same, and in the kitchen, they can hear it so well, the thrumming of it against the window. 

They're fed up of being inside. 

So out they step, gingerly. Spring rain; not so cold, but no so warm either. There's blue sky on the horizon; it’ll be over soon. They step further out, closing their eyes and feeling the water hit them, soak into their clothes and their hair. They feel the grass between their toes, and they know that they’re going to be a problem, tracking mud and rain through the house. 

They remember getting caught in rain like this, on the way back from one of their illicit trips to the grocery store. Tendou had been with them then, too, cackling with glee, uncaring of any consequences. To be free of all that expectation, to brush it off- well, Tendou has practice. They wish he didn’t, but they can’t change that now. They wish they could shuck that easier as well, like wishing that skirts and dresses came in their size, like wishing that they could go outside in them without stares, like wishing they could just wear and do what they want. 

They hold their hands out and feel the raindrops on their palms. They lift their face to the sky and feel it rain on them, squashing their eyes shut and getting lost in the music of the sky falling, of the ground greeting letters of the sky sent down, a love song of the heavens. Human music is one thing, but sometimes, it’ll never surpass the orchestra of nature, the birds, the rain, the wind. They’ll never sound like this, not after years on the guitar or centuries at a piano keyboard, spinning tunes to the sound of time. 

This wouldn't be special if they could. Being out here immersed in it wouldn't be so unique, so grounding. They remain silent, immersing themselves in it, putting distance from everything behind them. There is no house, no quarantine, no illness; no Tendou, no family, no Shiratorizawa, only this, a spring deluge. 

And them, in the middle of it. 

A deep breath in brings with it the scent of new rain; heated tarmac, the flowers around them. Intoxicating. They wish they could retain that scent, but they’d want the experience whole, plucked from reality to relive, and it simply wouldn’t match up without it. 

Suddenly, the rain stops short, broken in the falling by taut fabric, held over Eita’s head. Opening their eyes, there’s a false blue sky, and red hair, and piercing eyes, and they let their breath go, unaware of holding it. While they don’t breath, time doesn’t move, doesn’t stop. 

Time brings them back to square one. 

“Re-enacting ‘Singing in the Rain’?” Tendou asks. 

Eita thinks of casting the umbrella aside, letting the true sky reach them both, turning Tendou’s towelled red hair into a dripping mess like their own, wetness sticking their hoodie to their skin, making it heavy. They think about taking Tendou’s hand and twirling him around the garden, mud under their feet, seeping up through their toes. They think about how Tendou would react, unexpected unpredictability from Eita, never usually one for inane silliness. Never usually sent to this level of entrapment, seeing Tendou again and again and again, in a thousand new lights that merely cast nuance on what they already knew, dancing around a truth they’ve held for a long time, sent mad by casual touches and encrypted comments, deciphering codes and shooting down unattainable daydreams. 

They think of him, huddled around the computer, hearing the lecture but thinking of anime. They think of him, joining them on the roof. They think of him, asking them about constellations in the ceiling. They think of him, the gentle snuffling of sleep embracing him, the unguarded stance he’s fallen into around them, the enigmatic grins, the soft smiles, the cocky smirks. 

And they embrace it all. 

“Want to dance?” they ask, when perhaps it would be ‘I’ll be your Kathy’. Tendou watches them for a moment, stunned, before he laughs.  
“Have you already caught a cold?” he asks, putting his weight on one side and smirking at them. They twirl out from under the umbrella, further into the garden, onto the grass. Shielding their eyes with one hand, they watch Tendou blink at them while they hold one hand out to him. 

“I’m not asking twice.” 

Make or break, sink or swim. Maybe Tendou knows this isn’t about dancing in the garden under a rainy sky. Maybe, as he stands there deciding, he thinks about his mother getting annoyed and the world thinking they’re mad. 

And maybe Tendou decides to let them think what they want, as he puts the umbrella to one side and takes Eita’s hand. 

Don isn’t quite so practiced, nor so elegant, and he wasn’t red-headed in the movie. Kathy isn’t as pretty, maybe, or versed in dance, but they know a little and they use it to their best ability, making circles in the grass by two pairs of feet, smelling the rain on their skin and the grass underneath their feet and watching six feet of gangly awkward volleyball player smile wildly. 

Around and around, Eita is certain the grass suffers the trampling, and their vision becomes a blur of red to a background of blue sky and grey, alternately, until the shower ends, but they continue on. A rainbow comes into fruition in the sky around them, stretching into the horizon to points unknown. Perhaps, they think – even knowing that it’s a mere optical illusion – that they might find happiness at the end of that ethereal road. Spinning with Tendou in the garden feels like that could be their end of the rainbow, and they wish it wouldn’t have to end, even feeling the cold wind around them, and their feet going numb, too early in spring yet to be out like this. They keep spinning, dizzy with the façade of freedom in a city with no humans on the streets, locked away from invisible demons that too easily show claws. Eita forgets all that, lost in the vision of Tendou looking so gleeful it hurts. 

All too soon though, Tendou’s mother returns to the kitchen and spots them. Clearly recognising the stupidity of being out in the rain, she shouts at them, telling them to come in at once, and don’t track mud on the carpet!

Muttering softly about daft boys, she throws towels at them both as they scuttle in, a cold wind chilling them down to the skin. Tendou mildly bemoans needing another shower, although he’s grinning too much to come off as much of a complaint. Eita shucks the hoodie and the top and their trousers, although even their boxers are damp, and starts to dry themself the best they can. When they get to their hair, Tendou takes the towel off them and slaps their hands away. 

The softness of it steals their breath, and thinks that maybe, Tendou is telling them, ‘I’ll be your Don, then’. 

"Tendou," they murmur, wanting it to be true. Wanting, for once, confirmation. 

"That's my mother," Tendou mutters, speaking again in undecipherable code – except perhaps it is like all logical code. Solvable with the correct key. Eita hopes they have it. 

"Satori, then," Eita says, and looks at him from under the towel; Tendou hadn't expected them to do that, the way his eyes open and his head tilts. His hands pause mid-motion. "I like you. What are you going to do about that?" 

It's that midnight recklessness that makes them say it. 

The late afternoon sun settles on the kitchen floor, stilling the dust motes in the air as Eita waits. Tendou’s face goes round, eyes and mouth, and stays like that for an unnatural amount of time. 

Eita considers the answer ‘no’. Eita considers what ‘no’ means for the team, and for them. 

They never really meant to say anything. Maybe knowing is better but- it doesn’t feel better. They drop their head a little, scowling at the floor, and Tendou’s legs. They’d never considered Tendou not knowing. How can it shock him? 

Tendou pulls their head towards his chest, and hugs them tightly. And that, is their answer. It could be worse, but it’s not quite what they wanted to not hear. 

_Nothing. I’m going to do nothing._

Maybe Eita’s just Lina, after all.

* * *

Tendou’s taking a shower, and the ground outside is doing the same. At least, it was, last time they saw it. They took the opportunity of escape gratefully, and squashed their whole body into the airing cupboard. They’ve found the precise position of comfort, there; a centimetre to one side is the valve, and they are pressed close up to the water tank. It’s dusty. These are Tendou’s clothes, still, so Eita feels little mercy for them. 

It’s warm, dark, and most importantly, devoid of other people. It’s not like anyone else would fit in here, after all. 

They’d considered this as an emergency option for being alone several days ago, when Tendou’s mother had sent them to find a tea towel for the kitchen, and while Tendou had been immersed in his manga, Eita had squashed themself into this overly small space just to see if they could and felt like they were not being observed for once. 

This, they think, counts as an emergency. 

What does a hug even mean? It felt like pity, to Eita, showing their soul to Tendou and Tendou patting it awkwardly and handing it back. Like picking up an item in a shop and returning it to the shelf after seeing the price. Not worth it. 

Their fingers ache. They scrunch them into their palms, and rest their head on their knees, breathing a long breath out. In an ideal world, the lockdown gets lifted right now, and they slip out the house with their overnight bag and never return here. But what of classes, and volleyball? They can’t avoid Tendou forever. 

But they don’t need forever. They only need as long as it takes to put it back in the box Tendou always wanted to open. He won’t touch it again, they know. He’s solved a puzzle, and like predicted, he didn’t know what to do with the contents, and he’ll ignore it now. 

Yet, their phone remains quiet, and the world remains on lockdown, the war not yet done. They will have to emerge at some point, and face Tendou, and pretend it’s not worrying them that it might mean an end to that casual contact. If Tendou didn’t know before, as his shock implied, surely now he will distance himself, to leave no room for doubt, no room for hope in Eita’s heart. 

Eita hopes that Tendou at least regrets trying to solve this puzzle. 

They’d like to go for a run, or go to the gym. Something physical to burn through the humiliation, and some distance to keep the irritation at bay. They’re still stuck. Why here, of all places? They’d have gone insane at home on their own, but haven’t they just done that here, only with Tendou, and spoken words never meant to be voiced, and been shot down for their troubles? 

Footsteps go by the door, and isn’t their peace just so fragile? They don’t want to be found here, but they don’t want to be found at all. 

They end up on the front doorstep, playing tuneless music for an empty street. It feels like a bad concert.

* * *

Tendou barely sits down long enough at dinner to eat, speeding back up to his room, and Eita helps with cleaning up just for something to do. When that’s all done, they scroll mindlessly through the internet until they are nearly asleep, and then spend as little effort getting ready as possible. They fall asleep with earphones in, blocking out any attempt at communication by Tendou, and feeling intensely guilty about the hope when he tries. 

The morning greets them with no change. Tendou still looks as prettily unguarded and at ease within sleep, and Eita still wishes they’d not said anything to affect any kind of change. They get breakfast, and decide on the virtual equivalent of skipping class, sitting instead on the patio with the guitar and the videos and the song about anchors, determined to learn it. They’ll put the hurt and longing into this, instead. 

They sing it an octave down, to save their voice. They stumble over the lyrics, English yet to be fluent on their young tongue. They will know it, but not yet. It doesn’t all make sense, anyway, but the feeling is clear, even if the words are not. It’s difficult to co-ordinate the chords and the lyrics, but they start to get there. Time is only mapped in the way the sun glides across the sky, but it can only have been an hour or so when the door slides open behind them, and they jolt, an angular chord grazed from the strings. 

They look up. 

Red, a soft smile. Hair ungelled, eyes baggy from reading manga late at night, under the covers where the light won’t wake Eita. They’d woken up and seen the light still on and heard many clicked tongue noises. The frustration hasn’t carried into the morning, although the weight of seeing the early hours of the morning still has. 

“Eita,” he says, too soft. Tones like that give Eita hope, and hope is not a friend right now. But he steps forward and leans his hands on their shoulders, and leans over, and briefly presses his lips to Eita’s. 

The sun grinds to a halt, the birds stop to look. The clouds all quiver with the shockwave, but Eita is frozen, hands loose on the guitar as they stare at Tendou, eyes crinkled and mouth swept into a mischievous smile. 

“’ _Caught the air in your woollen mouth_ ’, right?” He says, and it takes too long to link the Japanese to the English and the English to the song they sing, a chorus of the lonely. “But I’m not searching for anyone else, Eita, be in no doubt.” 

The neck of the guitar slips out of his grasp, and hits the floor, filling the space with a discordant twang. Eita returns to life. 

“You kissed me?!” they shriek, the confusion a tumultuous storm within them. But hadn’t- didn’t he- when? _Why_? Tendou smirks. 

“And I’ll happily anchor up to you too, Eita,” he murmurs, shifting to sit next to Eita instead. They swivel to continue watching him, watch as he folds his legs up to his chest, and watch as he glances back at Eita. “That’s what you meant, wasn’t it?” 

Just a tiny kernel of uncertainty in those eyes. Someone less familiar, someone who’d not been caught with him for so long, would have missed it. 

Eita snorts. If only they’d asked. Maybe they don’t need to regret those words, and maybe Tendou did know what to do with the contents of this box, and maybe he wants to add something, and cherish it – and maybe it’s a little much to process fully right now. 

Eita lays their head on Tendou’s shoulder, and laughs quietly. So this easy contact can continue, after all. 

“I thought you were rejecting me, Tendou,” they whisper. 

Tendou responds by pulling his arm back, and using the other to guide Eita’s fall until they face upwards, head in his lap, Tendou grinning down at them, a dusting of red high on his cheeks. Eita wants to brush it off, because it, this, cannot possibly be real – but it is. His dreams never could produce such vivacity. 

“I think you can keep calling me Satori, I like that more,” he states, then taps the guitar. “Play me a song, Eita.” 

Eita gives without thought. The lockdown will end like this, them singing to him, and him clumsily singing along to the ones he knows. He’ll request anime themes, and Eita will learn them for him, just to see him grinning and dancing jauntily. 

And he’ll always be there to anchor onto.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel it's worth mentioning that I haven't actually seen Singing in the Rain, but Tendou seems like someone who's seen a lot of movies and references a lot of things, so yeah.


End file.
